Zero Hour

Although the story is told from Mrs. Morris’s point of view and therefore does not give readers insight into Mink’s thoughts, Mink serves as the lynchpin on which the action of the story turns. She is also fundamentally important to the story’s examination of the Loss of Innocence. Bradbury’s characterization of Mink as chaotic, loud, and decisive is at odds with the stereotypical image of a young girl during the 20th century. This suggests that Mink’s gender is not a primary concern for her character arc—rather, her age is. She is characterized not specifically as a little girl, but as a child archetype, composed of all the verve and energy of early childhood. This brash and bold type of childishness is communicated through Bradbury’s diction, which includes verb choices like “yanked,” “rattled,” (Paragraph 2), and “slammed” (Paragraph 10). This equates Mink’s childishness with a kind of violence, albeit a violence that seems entirely innocent to observers until it is too late. 

While in many ways Mink serves as a child archetype in the same way that Mrs. Morris serves as a parent archetype, she also undergoes a clear individual character arc. She plays an essential role in the alien invasion, serving as the de facto leader of the neighborhood children and as Drill’s right hand and interpreter. Her role in the communication between the aliens and the children is highly ironic, given that the outcome of the story hinges on the inability of Mink and Mrs. Morris to communicate effectively. 

Mink transforms, in the eyes of the reader, from the innocent and high-energy “fleeing tot” (Paragraph 9) to the harbinger of doom and destruction in the final scene, where she utters the contextually chilling last line of the story: “Peek-a-boo.” Here, Mink is framed by the alien Drill’s shadow, but Drill remains unseen. This emphasizes that, by the end of the story, Mink has surpassed Drill as the main antagonist.

Drill is an essential secondary character in “Zero Hour,” though he is never properly in-scene. There are moments when Mrs. Morris (and thus the reader) comes close to encountering Drill, but she never does. The first of these moments is when Mrs. Morris hears Mink talking to the rose-bush that presumably hides Drill from view. He is not physically present again until the end of the story, when an alien who is presumably Drill follows Mink up to the attic to find her parents. Still, Drill is not visible to the reader or to Mr. and Mrs. Morris, except as “tall blue shadows” (Paragraph 201). The fact that Drill remains unseen is symbolically important: His invisibility in the narrative represents his invisibility within the story, specifically to the adults. Even once Mrs. Morris and the other adults are confronted with the reality of their situation, Drill remains in shadow. 

While Drill is rarely in-scene and never visible, he is nonetheless extremely present through Mink’s dialogue; Drill’s words in Mink’s speech display a halting and hesitant manner that shows she is relaying a message rather than conveying an original thought. Drill’s sentiments, as communicated by Mink, cut right to the heart of the story: he lays out the divide between adults and children, that adults are bound by logic while children are “impressionable.” It takes an outsider, a literal alien, to be able to see both flaws at once—and then exploit them.